My 55-hour Labor
A long birth was not at all what I expected
My water broke on a Wednesday morning and I gave birth on a Friday night. That’s not how it was supposed to happen, or at least it’s not how it happens in the movies, which is where I had learned most of what I thought I knew about childbirth.
I know a lot about movies and their comforting, predictable structure – I’ve written them and written about them for magazines, newspapers and websites. There’s always a three-act structure and a climax followed by resolution. I thought I could impose that same kind of narrative structure on my childbirth. So when my doula, Katie, warned me: “As you live, so you deliver your baby,” I still figured my birth would be as breezy as a Kate Hudson romantic comedy. That’s the birth I planned for.
Being the laid back person that I am, I didn’t panic when my water broke on my way to the doctor’s office. It was February 27th, the day before my due date, and I had an appointment with my OB, Dr. Crane. As I hopped out of the car, I felt a gush of liquid between my legs, drenching the seams of my pants and trickling around my ankles. I inched my way to the elevator as fast as a person can while squeezing her thighs together and called Harlan, my husband. As I entered Dr. Crane’s, I announced: “I think my water just broke.”
I was ushered into an office and hooked up to a monitor that revealed I was having contractions every six to seven minutes. Every time I had one, the baby’s heart rate picked up, which Dr. Crane said was a sign of a healthy baby. He checked my cervix – I was dilated one centimeter out of the 10 necessary to deliver the baby. According to the documentary The Business of Being Born and my prenatal yoga teacher, this is the point where most OBs would have pumped me full of antibiotics to stave off infection and Pitocin to augment my contractions and in grave tones terrified me with tales of distressed, infected babies until I was begging for an emergency C-section. But Dr. Crane, who believes that a body knows how to birth a baby and that it’s best to stay out of its way, assured me that the myth that you have to get the baby out within 24 hours of the water breaking is just that: a myth. The risk of infection is still minuscule and can be avoided by monitoring the baby regularly. He sent me home and told me that labor would probably start spontaneously in the night. He also mentioned, casually, that he had to go to Las Vegas on Friday, but not to fret – it was only Wednesday, remember? I’d have a baby by then.
Because I wasn’t experiencing any pain, I did what any normal woman whose contractions are only six to seven minutes apart would do: I went shopping. While waiting for the nursing bra expert at the Pump Station, I told the woman next to me, “My water just broke.” “Oh my God, go before me,” she said. At the Right Start, where I went to buy the baby sling I’d been meaning to pick up for the last eight months, a young mom said, “Oh my God, they’re letting you wander around after your water broke?” and backed away, as if I was some reckless, hippy, natural childbirth freak from whose crotch a baby might spill at any moment.
Except no baby was spilling out of me any time soon. In movies, a montage sequence is often used to show the passage of time, cutting together a series of events that in unison represent a single idea. If I had a montage of my labor, the beginning stages would go something like this:
- Me waddling through the streets of Venice, California, with a friend in an attempt to jumpstart my labor.
- Me whacking Harlan awake later to let him know real contractions have begun.
- Me trying to figure out how to time my contractions using contractionmaster.com.
- Me watching Ratatouille with my younger sister who’s trying to feed me a taco salad that made me want to hurl.
- Dr. Crane measuring my cervix and saying it’s still a long way till baby time.
- Me cringing as my husband and doula force me to go all the way back to Venice to labor in the comfort of our home even though Cedars Sinai is a two-minute drive from the doctor’s office.
- Me crouching in the passenger seat, trying in vain to find the part of my hypnobirthing CD on my iPod where a leopard guides me to a fairy tale cottage in a magical forest.
- Me blasting “Just Like Heaven” and “You Shook Me All Night Long” and dancing around my living room.
- Harlan sucking my nipples in the shower to stimulate the release of oxytocin while I stand there, immune to his advances, but loving the way the hot water makes my pain disappear.
- Me walking around my neighborhood at midnight with Harlan and Katie, clinging to them both as a contraction hits and whimpering, “Why is this happening?” as liquid splashes down my legs – again. Katie saying, “This is good, birth is messy, it’s good to get used to it.”
- Me at the hospital, falling asleep between contractions while sitting on the edge of my bed as a nurse watches my baby’s heart rate on a monitor.
- Katie hanging Christmas lights in our dark room for ambiance.
- Me seeing my family and friends in the waiting room as I walk the long, fluorescent-lit hallways in a hideous green gown and telling them to go home and come back the next day.
- Harlan rubbing my feet as I recline on my hospital bed, clutching my massive belly.
I was determined to have a natural childbirth, but that changed on the morning of Friday, February 29. Dr. Crane measured my cervix – it had only dilated to six centimeters. By this time, I’d been in labor for 36 hours. He said it was time to put me on Pitocin. Katie put her arm around me and said she had to agree. Exhausted and sick of the pain, I told Dr. Crane if I was getting Pitocin, I wanted an epidural, too.
And with the flick of a switch, my birth went from warm, fuzzy and feminine to something that Stanley Kubrick might have directed, had Dr. Strangelove featured a woman giving birth: there were two strange men in the room, the anesthesiologist and his assistant, their maleness and unfamiliarity surreal under the bright lights they turned on as they entered my room. As a needle violated my back, I leaned onto soft pillows, afraid of what I had done. I could still feel my contractions and I feared for the future of my spinal column and how the drug might affect my baby.
But then things improved. I realized I hadn’t felt a contraction in a while. I smiled, laughed even. On the monitor, I saw them coming, harder now, closer together, thanks to the Pitocin. Dr. Crane visited me for the last time and apologized for having to leave; he had to go to Vegas. My cervix was at 8 cm, he said, we were on our way. I closed my eyes and slept for three hours.
I woke up to meet Dr. Crane’ s partner Dr. Chin, who was going to deliver my baby. He measured me yet again and said my cervix was not at 8 centimeters at all; it was closer to 6. Either Dr. Crane had been going on wishful thinking or I’d actually regressed. In any case, he said we should increase the dosage of the Pitocin and reconvene in an hour and a half. If I hadn’t progressed substantially, he would have to recommend a C-section.
This is that part of the movie where the protagonist hits rock bottom and has to summon inner resources she didn’t know she had. Everyone left the room except Harlan. He sat down next to the bed. “Who the hell is he to waltz in here after all this time and tell us you need a C-section?” he said. “He’s just being honest with us,” I said, with uncharacteristic calm and resignation. “The most important thing is that we have a healthy baby. It doesn’t really matter how.” I closed my eyes and visualized flowers opening, my cervix dilating easily, white roses bursting into bloom – and once again, I fell asleep.
Upon waking, I heard Susan, a nurse, erupt: “Sweet baby, you are at nine-and-a-half centimeters! We’re going to deliver this baby!” I started to laugh, convinced it was thanks to my blooming-flower visualization.
With Susan crouched between my legs, Harlan and Katie on either side and a third nurse, who had just come on duty, by my right shoulder, we waited for the next contraction and bam! Susan said, “Now!” Two days and seven hours after my water broke, we finally found ourselves in a big-budget, Hollywood-blockbuster birthing scene. On that very first push, Harlan said, “Oh my God, I can see the head!” Dr. Chin showed up, moved into position and started massaging my perineum. He pushed and pulled my tight, tender skin, getting his whole hand in there and kneading and stretching me like dough, rubbing full force as if he were scrubbing rust off the inside of a hubcap. (And it worked; I made it through delivery without a tear or an episiotomy.)
“Reach down here, Andrea,” Dr. Chin said, “and take your baby.” I reached between my legs and put my hands around what turned out to be a tiny squirming torso and pulled the rest of my baby out from between my legs. I held him up and saw my baby, still connected to me by the umbilical cord. He was squished and covered in blood and screaming. The room erupted in laughter and cheers. Harlan cut the cord and ran down the hall to alert my family and friends, and they all streamed into the room, beaming, spilling congratulations, pointing cameras at us. My uncle Jack even handed Harlan a cigar.
Katie was right – as I live, so I delivered my baby. Turns out childbirth is life at its messiest, at its least predictable and most resistant to planning. Only when I’d abandoned my plan and nearly given up hope did my body – and my baby – cooperate. Aidan Wolf Bosmajian is the happy ending we’d been waiting for.
I am crying! Great article.
This brought back so many memories for me. My membranes started leaking on a Wednesday morning, and I didn’t give birth until Friday morning, and also wound up with pitocin and an epidural. My mom and my sister had both had 5-6 hour labours, so I thought I was in for a nice brief experience. So much for that, huh? Good for you, though, for keeping your eyes on the prize: a healthy baby. I see so many mothers who get so caught up in their disappointment in their birthing experience, instead of looking back in fondness of when they gave birth to a beautiful human being. It’s kind of sad, really. At the end of the day, I didn’t care if my baby came out of my vagina, an incision, or my left nostril — as long as he arrived and was healthy.
Sweet Jesus! You poor thing!
OK, it’s not very noble of me, but mostly what I am is SO JEALOUS. I had nearly the exact same story (even the Wednesday-Friday timeline) except that awesome moment where they told you that you were at 9.5 centimeters never came and I had a C-section. What a great story, and lucky you!
I am glad you wrote this! My labor was also REALLY long at 61 hours. I went into labor on Saturday night and had the baby on Tuesday afternoon. It’s annoying when people say they had a “long” labor and it was like 12 hours. I also wanted to go natural and ended up getting the pitocen and epidural. I am glad I did because I really needed to rest after being awake in labor for days.
I loved reading this! I’ve had 3 day labors with both my kids. Both with midwives at a birth center. I went shopping and out to eat with and I got the looks you talk about. People acted as if I was a freak. I have done everything except caster oil to “speed things up.” I don’t mind long labor too much, but I cry when I finally hear “you’re at a 9.”
This happened to me too! Early water breaking, a full day of labor with little progress, right down to “if you’re putting me on pitocin, I want the epidural.” The only different part: I had to push for 4 hours.
With my first, my water broke on a Friday night, right before a repeat of Seinfeld was about to start. I called my midwife and she told me as long as I was not having contractions (I wasn’t) to stay home until the following morning.
By Saturday morning, I still wasn’t having contractions. The hospital I was to deliver at was about an hour from our home, so DH and I figured we’d deposit his paycheck in the bank on the way, as he probably wouldn’t have time later.
After the bank, we stopped at Starbucks. I figured at 41 weeks and 1 day, and about to deliver, I probably deserved a giant-ass coffee. Got almost to the hospital and realized I forgot my magazines; quick trip to a 7-11.
By the time I got to the hospital, probably just before noon, I still wasn’t having contractions. After SNL that night, I still wasn’t having contractions. After an awful movie with (I think) Christian Slater, maybe called “Flamenco” (I was tired), I still wasn’t having contractions.
I got pitocin around 2:30am on Sunday, but no epidural (I was scared of the needle). Finally, at 5:17am, as I was watching the sun rise over the Long Island Sound, my little guy was born.
This is such a lovely, thoughtful piece. Thanks, Andrea. A positive labor and delivery experience can make a woman feel capable, competent and so powerful, dovetailing that to those first weeks home with a new baby, though, set me on quite a spin. I had a beautiful deliveryin which I took all my contractions standing up like a peasant and delivered with my own hands a perfect child in under 3 hours. I felt strong, I felt efficient, I felt in tune with the world. I could do ANYTHINGbut then alone with a baby, I could do nothing right. Remembering who I was in the delivery room really helped to get me through a rocky patch in early motherhood and bringing my baby into the world still feels like my greatest accomplishment. A healthy baby isof course and without questionthe most important thing to the process, but the process itself carries a huge emotional weightand huge emotional consequences. Having a tough time postpartum made me very thankful that my delivery was so positive. I cant imagine how I would have fared had things been different, had I been forced into a difficult labor environment, had I started motherhood with negative feelings. I loved reading about your patience and clear-headednessand your doctors willingness to ride it out with you.
I loved this story… So inspiring:)
After 52 hours of labor the doctor waltzed in and asked my husband … not me … my husband …. “What do you think the rest of the family would think about a Cesarean?” I raised up on one elbow and said, “You can use the G**D**n CHAINSAW right now and I’d sign all your papers. Just get this baby OUT OF ME!!!”
I had early water breaking too, no contractions, 18 hrs later I was still 1 cm dilated and i only knew my OB for a week and a half…. My labor was only 24 hours and 25 minutes later because i was only 33 weeks and they were scared of infections….. But I was so glad that I changed my OB because the other one would rush me into C Section!!! And even thoug he stayed on ICU for a week everyone treated him like a normal baby!
This is so well written and entertaining! Good work lady and team baby!!! Cheers for sharing.
Very good article! thank you to the author for it! In it interesting and useful information it is possible often times re-read it! I will advise to read it all friends. It will be very useful at writing of the article college paper. Very much thankful you.
Fantastic story. You’re not the only one working with the Hollywood narrative; in the movies, the water breaks, an arm shoots up; TAXI! And the next thing you know she’s on a gurney being rushed down the hall, gripping loving husband’s hand. And you know what he’s saying: “BREATHE!” I think this is one of the most valuable birth stories around, not because everyone will have a 55 hour labor, but just to get across the way the whole thing messily unfolds. Also, your story highlights the importance and power of both non-medicated and medicated labor. All the work you did before the medication was so vital. And the medication at the end helped prevent a c-section. I teach childbirth classes and spend a lot of time talking about how trying to decide what is “better,” natural or medical birth doesn’t make much sense without looking at each situation. So thanks for a perfect illustration of a scenario where all kinds of things helped: hard work, labor coping, water, movement, positioning, doula, doctor, drugs. A virtual tasting menu of birth options. I’m so inspired I think I’m going to blog about your story. I’ll check back in with the link.
Excellent story. Oddly, I also had my first baby’s labor start on a Wednesday and finally have baby show up on Friday. My water didn’t break but my “montage” is much like yours. Contractions not strong enough to constitute active labor, but never letting up enough that I could actually lie down and get some sleep. The endlessness of it drove me crazy. I eventually ended up in the hospital on pitocin with an epidural just like you because I was so exhausted and frustrated I couldn’t think straight anymore. I think a lot of first labors are like that.
OK I just wrote about why this is the one birth story all expecting parents should read: http://blogs.babble.com/being-pregnant/2011/01/20/whats-better-natural-or-medical-birth/
Thanks again for the awesome tale. Loved it.
I’m so pleased that everyone’s enjoying my story! Listening to your wonderful comments, I think the lesson to moms-to-be is clear: Let go of your expectations, because if theres one thing predictable about childbirth, its the unpredictability! You never know what to expect. And yes, Ceridwen, movies are the wrong place to look for realism in the realm of childbirth. Take Juno, for example. She learns shes pregnant in Act 1, scene 1. Just in time for Act 3, she looks at her crotch and announces, Uh, Dad, either I just wet my pants.or thundercats are go! Five minutes later shes sweating through delivery. And Juno is a cool indie that explores messy, lifelike emotions Dont get me started with big Hollywood productions! Your birth is your birth and it will unfold the way it unfolds, and I havent yet seen the movie that got it right. As I said in the piece, my birth was far from the breezy Kate Hudson romantic comedy I expected. The movie version of my babys birth would be a meandering indie, at once comic, moving and seemingly neverending. With no chance whatsoever of getting into Sundance.
This is the story I should have read before giving birth ! Everybody around me had fairytale birthing experiences… I should have seen it coming ! I was on labor for 56 hours, pushed for 4 hours and ended up with an emergency C section !!
55 HOUR labor???? hell to the no thank you
I’m pretty sure I could have written this.
Thoroughly enjoyed this until I got to the obligatory comment shaming mothers who are disappointed with their birth experiences despite having healthy babies. Of course a healthy baby is the paramount goal in any birth. However, at least for some people, it isn’t the only goal. Mothers matter too. Our bodies matter. Feelings of disappointment, even grief and loss can accompany a birth that ends with a healthy baby. I am so happy for the author that she got to reach down and pull her baby out and hold him. But I also envy her. I didn’t hold my son or even really see him until he was hours old. While my husband got to hold him and my mother got to see him, I was lying in a room alone, doped up and recovering from surgery. I look back on the birth and feel disappointed about a lot of things, including the delayed bonding with my baby, at the same time that I feel gratitude and joy for my beautiful, healthy son.
This was great! I got a bit choked up. I didn’t get distracted by a writing style that annoyed me, or other things that usually interfere with my enjoying a personal story. New fan here.
excellent!!!
I’m anticipating labor any time now and hope to goodness my labor doesn’t go on so long. That said, you struck many familiar cords as to how u prepared for bringing your baby into this world. Thank you for sharing. I will keep an open mind.
This was just like my labor, minus the epidural
Just read this article, a nice reminder that though a birth might not go according to “plan”, it doesn’t mean it can’t have a happy and healthy outcome- just what i needed to read right now!
@Susan Roberts – She got your, “Sweet baby” just right! @Tony Chin – I love how you and Dr. Crane allow momma’s to reach down and catch their own baby and bring them to the chest.
Labor and childbrith wasn’t what I expected either. I was induced due to higher than normal blood pressure the day before my due date at about 1 pm. As my labor progressed, my blood pressure stabilized, but my kidney and liver function began to decrease. By the time of my emergency c-section the next day at 10:30am, I was on five IVs of who knows what kind of meds and had absolutely no energy. It definitely wasn’t how I thought it would be, but It all worked out in the end. : )
I was in labor in the neighborhood of 240 hours :-p My water broke and 10 days later I finally gave birth. It was due to a hospital mistake… they told me that my water had not broken (which might have been because I had twin suffering from a then-undiagnosed case of TTTS, so I’m thinking that maybe just one of my waters broke?) and, I just assumed all the pressure that I was feeling was just because carrying twins was tougher carrying singletons (which it is, but, not that tough I now realize :-p)… it was my first pregnancy and I just didn’t know better. It was just when the pressure became too much to bear (and actually started to come regularly enough that I finally recognized it for what it was: contractions), that I went to the hospital and had to have an emergency C-section, despite both of the girls being in the right position to be born vaginally (because I had developed an infection in my uterus due to my water having been broken for so long).
Sorry, not trying to one-up anyone… at least not really :-p But, figured I’d share :-p
I was in labor with my first baby for 8 days. I went into labor on the 7th of july and i would get contractions that stopped me in my tracks that came every 1-3 minutes. Walking made them worse and drinking water was no help. I finally was given pitocen on the 14th, they broke my water on the 15th and she was finally born at 2:32 pm on the 15th of july.
My labor was also 50+ hours and followed a similar scenario after similar expectations. I also write about it at length in my new book, A Double Life, Discovering Motherhood, including some of the biological reasons for stalled labor/failure to progress and the reason why medication at the end of a long labor like ours actually speeds rather than inhibits progress. Like you, I experienced everything short of a c-section (though I did get a fever and need antibiotics due to prolonged rupture of sac etc. Baby totally healthy though).
The one birth moment in a film that always springs to mind as the opposite of real life is in the Sex and the City film when Charlottes waters break why the panic Big? Id have told him calm down, Ill phone my midwife now and go home for a bath, dont get me to the hospital like Im an emergency. I somehow managed to push my waters out whole at home in transition after being sent home for not being dilated enough. I held them with my hand thinking it was my babys head until my husband said it looks like a condom full of water. I had to let go to walk out of our flat and thats when they gushed. Ah, the hilarity in hindsight. Im a big fan of the play-it-by-ear approach to birthing. Im due again in March and Im so laid back about it my main worry is that this labour will be even quicker! Sorry not trying to rub it in to you long-labour ladies I kept getting told last time that I was a b*tch for having such an easy birth. Yes, it was short and healthy and normal but it still bloody hurt! But I digress.
The one birth moment in a film that always springs to mind as the opposite of real life is in the Sex and the City film when Charlottes waters break why the panic Big? Id have told him calm down, Ill phone my midwife now and go home for a bath, dont get me to the hospital like Im an emergency. I somehow managed to push my waters out whole at home in transition after being sent home for not being dilated enough. I held them with my hand thinking it was my babys head until my husband said it looks like a condom full of water. I had to let go to walk out of our flat and thats when they gushed. Ah, the hilarity in hindsight. Im a big fan of the play-it-by-ear approach to birthing. Im due again in March and Im so laid back about it my main worry is that this labour will be even quicker! Sorry not trying to rub it in to you long-labour ladies I kept getting told last time that I was a b*tch for having such an easy birth. Yes, it was short and healthy and normal but it still bloody hurt! But I digress.